We brought her in, A&E was very slow on Sunday nights, but she was admitted that evening, and the Monday she got sicker and sicker, and she started to go down and I got, one of my son’s was here, the other son was in, in France. And I told the son here that you know, do come, and he came, and eventually I think it was probably the Monday night, at suppertime we realised that she was really going down because they kept saying her blood, not her blood, her heart rate was going too fast now, and all sorts of things were happening. And they were saying her organs are in danger.

So as it happened I had sent a text to my other son in France, and he, he made it back, he got back I think at lunchtime on the Tuesday. And at that stage her heart was racing, and she was starting to really go down, and was going in and out of consciousness, but quite peaceful, in one, in that sense. And we just sat with her, holding her hand for the rest of that afternoon.

At one point you know I went and talked with the; there’d been a doctor there, an oncologist who Martine related to very well, I talked to her and she said, You must prepare herself, I don’t think she’s going to survive this

And it was about 7 o’clock that night, she just stopped breathing, very quiet and, we’d agreed beforehand, a no, no rescuss agreement, that if her heart stopped that was it, because you know it had, it had, she’d have been through so much at that point.

At first they said, Oh no she’s going to be alright but then they realised she was just going down and down. And so her, in the end it was very peaceful and quiet. We’d got, some friends came in, who were shocked because you know, she’d, everybody just heard, Oh she’s back from holiday and started her treatment And then for most people, suddenly, Martine has died. So it was a great shock. Thank goodness the boys were there, for them I think it was the most important thing that they were holding their Mum’s hand when she died.

And she died peacefully.

And she died peacefully, that’s right. And, I mean, they gave her all the painkillers she needed.

When Martine died did the hospital support you?

Yes, when she died, in a number of ways the hospital supported us, and supported me. Perhaps the most important thing was there were a couple of nurses on duty that night, and they each took it in turn just to come in, close the door, stand there with their head bowed, and then walk out again. There was a sign of recognition that somebody has died, because we, after she died we probably spent an hour, an hour and a half in the room. We were in a room, a separate room.

And then I went out and I spoke to whoever was the nurse in charge, and said, What happens now And she gave me that leaflet and said, What happens is that Martine’s body is taken down to the hospital mortuary, and then tomorrow morning, you must go to the bereavement office, and there you hand this piece of paper in, and then they give you another piece of paper

And then we were called in for an interview with the surgeon who said, We’ll give you the results of everything, and the diagnosi. As it turned out it was a fateful date; it was our 25th Wedding anniversary. But we went to the hospital together, and saw a surgeon and there was a nurse there as well. And he said that, You’ve got cancer, and it’s pancreatic cancer. And I can confirm that it’s definite, the biopsy shows that

He was a man who wanted to explain and we were very grateful because we, neither of us had any idea, we’d not heard of pancreatic cancer before. And he drew us a picture, which was actually very useful. Because he showed how there’s a great big vein that goes through the pancreas, and that the tumour was quite, I don’t know, quite near to, reasonably substantial. And that it had been there for some while, and that lots of veins had grown all around it because it was blocking the portal vein. So he said, You know, that means I’m afraid we cannot operate. There’s no question of it because once a tumour has got this multitude of veins around it, it’s out, it can’t be operated on anymore

And it was a complete shock that to us. And both of us, we did really didn’t know what was going on at that point. And we were quite upset and quite, quite, found it very difficult.

I think after that things moved fairly fast in that we were handed over to, from the surgeon to a radiologist, oncologist. And they said straightaway, We’re going to move you to two things, you’re going to start a course of chemotherap, I think there’s a, there’s a drug that’s always used for, and called gemcitabine, and also you’ll go onto radiotherap.

And then we learnt all about the process of having planning, I think it’s called, where she had to go and have these little marks, little tattoos put on her. First when the word tattoo was used, we had visions of great big marks on her body, which she was a bit worried about, but they were only just dots actually.

And then she went for the planning and she had these tattoo marks so that when she was lying on the, the big machine with the radiotherapy, whatever it is, the gun, they knew exactly where to focus it so it was straight on the tumour, on the pancreas.

And she never felt anything, during the sessions of radiotherapy. As the radiotherapy went on she got tireder and tireder, but how much was from the radiotherapy and how much was from the chemotherapy, we don’t know because it was joint.

On that, the bit that, where it always hit Martine, and we found very difficult was travel insurance. Because you do want to travel, specially if you get a terminal, a diagnosis like that and you want to go to other countries, either to see people or do a visit, to see somewhere you’ve never seen before. But you’ve been warned, the moment you apply for this, for any travel insurance, either they will refuse it straightaway when you say pancreatic cancer, or say, Oh yes we can do that, but we need to ask you a little questionnaire And the questions are intrusive, like, Is your, has your cancer been diagnosed as terminal And Martine, she never wanted that word. She said, I don’t want to know that. That’s precisely what I want to block out, and that’s precisely what the insurance company insisted on getting an answer to. And at that point I would, or usually it was on the phone, I would say, Can I answer on behalf of my wife And then they’d talk to her and say, Is it alright if your husband answers all these questions And she would leave the room. And then I would do the rest of the questionnaire to, to get the insurance, because we did want to travel, and we needed the insurance in case.

And was it very expensive?

Not hugely, well we eventually took the decision not to insure for the cancer. Some of the insurance companies will say, We will give you insurance excluding your present conditio. And because we were always going to France, and we were with either friends or family we felt confident enough to say, if suddenly she got worse we could bring her back, or we knew local people enough. So it wasn’t hugely expensive because we excluded the, the cancer from the, but if you include it, its, it was going to be very expensive indeed.

Did you ever discuss the subject of assisted dying? Because that’s been in the news a lot lately?

It has been in the news a lot, yes. No we didn’t. One of the things I suppose again from our Catholic faith is that it’s, assisted dying is a big no. We had discussed it in terms, because it’s always coming up on a, in other, some of the other people felt is not worth living. But this is where Martine’s friend, the one who’d been through the holocaust was such a strength to her, because she’d seen so much death, and said, No don’t worry about that. You know, you’re dying. Make the most of the now

So yes, no we never got into a discussion. If she’d had years and years of acute pain, would we have talked about it? I think we probably would have talked about it because it’s natural, because she went through ups and downs. I mustn’t say faith always is a steady keel, it isn’t. And sometimes when the markers had gone up dramatically again, we’d go back to the Chapel and she would say, Look I don’t think I’m on good terms with God today. We’ll leave the praying for a couple of days And she’d, because there’d be all these human reactions, but for those, not despair, but you know when she was really despondent, she never suffered from depression any long term. She’d get periods of great down, but just for a couple of days.

But you said assisted dying would be against your religious faith anyhow.

Yes it would, it would be, and yes, that’s right, but equally what is not against our faith is keeping alive with extraordinary means. In other words, if it’s clear that the treatment, to continue it was, is going to lead to great suffering and distress, you’re not bound to continue the treatment, you can make the decision I’ll stop the treatment.

Yes, and make the decision not to resuscitate as well?

Yes, yes exactly. As long as food and water are always available, the normal means of life, then that can, and equally we never actually had a need to discuss it, but things like morphine, painkillers, if it had reached the point that she was in such pain that she needed levels of morphine which had the other effect of shortening her life, that’s allowed as well, because there’s no intention to kill, but the treatment might hasten death and as I say that, that’s perfectly normal.